Difference Between Sheep and Lamb

Some animals are quite similar to each other that is becomes hard for a common man to identify any difference between them. However, when you talk to an expert, he/she will tell you various dissimilarities, which you wouldn’t have even imagined.

Just like some of the other species, it is difficult to spot any differences between sheep and lamb. If you really wish to know what makes these two animals different from one another, you should keep on reading this article.

The most important thing you should know is that sheep is an overall name of a species, which includes lambs, ewes, rams and wethers. So, lamb falls in a subcategory of the sheep.

When it comes to identifying the sheep and lamb, you have to look at the age of both. The young age animals that fall in this category are called the lamb whereas the ones above one year old are classified as sheep.

Others are Reading

Instructions

1

Both these animals are slaughtered for meat, but if you are an expert, you would know which form of meat is better. Since the sheep is older in age, it has got a lot of fat, thus its meat is not very good for eating. Therefore, it is less expensive as compared to the meat of lamb, which gets tender pretty easily while cooking.

You can easily identify the difference between a mature sheep and a young one; look at the teeth of this animal to find out the correct age. Mature sheep have eight incisors, which pop up every year after their birth. This means that the lamb doesn’t have any incisors and you can simply check the teeth of the animal to determine whether it is the right one for you or not.

Since the sheep have got incisors, they can eat solid food such as grass. They don’t have any problem, cutting and chewing the food. The lambs are dependent on sheep milk until they get one year old and grow a pair of incisors.

2

Sheep

Sheep are found in most parts of the world, and are abundant in China, India, Mongolia, United States, United Kingdom and Pakistan. They are mainly used for producing milk and meat. Since they are herbivorous mammals, they mainly eat grass.

Image Courtesy: commons.wikimedia.org

3

Lambs

Lambs are popular for their meat and wool. Since they are the younger species of sheep, they cannot produce milk until they are old enough.